Implementing wireless communication networks in real life environments is typically a challenging and complex undertaking. The complexities of such networks arise from numerous factors. One set of factors includes the physical communication channels in the presence of urban structures, natural terrain, atmospheric variations and other environmental factors. Another set of factors arises from the engineering systems needed to support wireless communications over useful ranges, which includes the antenna designs and placements, communication base station hardware and software, wired communication infrastructure, switching and other maintenance and upkeep factors. Yet another set of factors arises from the mobile wireless devices and their sheer numbers in some areas, each requiring real-time and acceptable quality of service around the clock. Taken together, the infrastructure and devices and techniques used to interconnect the parts of the system can be referred to as a mobile communication system (sometimes “MCS”). A primary goal of MCS system designers and operators is to implement and operate the MCS system in the most reliable, robust and efficient manner so as to serve the largest number of customers with the highest level of quality at a most cost effective rate.
One example of MCS is cellular telephone communication systems and networks, which vary from region to region but share physical and design and performance features. These systems generally include a network of base stations including telephony processors and servers coupled to physical antenna installations. The antenna installations permit over the air wireless communication with suitably equipped and subscribing customers. In most or all cases, a mobile communication device can continue a communication session even when traversing from one cell of the cellular network to another using established handover methods. A well designed and operated cellular system offers consistent good quality communication with few communication problems (dropped calls) or disruptions due to handover events, interference, fading or other noise generating factors. The settings of various controlling parameters in mobile communication systems (MCS) significantly affect various dimensions of performance of mobile devices, which are connected to and utilize the services provided by the MCS. In the prior art MCS and prior art standards and practices used to govern the MCS, improvements to such performance of mobile devices under conditions of mobility are referred to as “mobility robustness” improvements, which seek to improve the success rates of handover of the mobile device from one cell to another in the MCS and eventually improve drop call rates.
Base Stations are network elements to which mobile user devices are connected in the MCS using radio channels. Handover is a mechanism of the MCS whereby a user mobile device is assigned different serving Base Stations to connect to as the mobile user devices move around the coverage areas of a MCS. Due to high number of relations defined in a typical MCS, manual setting of handover (HO) parameters in current 2G/3G/4G systems is considered too costly and time consuming task. In scenarios where manual configuration is done, incorrect or unoptimized HO parameter settings negatively affect user experience and waste network resources by causing HO ping-pongs, HO failures, and radio link failures (RLF). While HO failures that do not lead to radio link failures (RLF) are often recoverable and transparent to the user, RLFs caused by incorrect HO parameter settings have a combined impact on user experience and on the availability of network resources.
A number of metrics are defined to characterize the performance or robustness of a MCS. The metrics are referred to as Key Performance Indicators (KPI). However, merely defining such metrics does not help improve the performance and robustness of networks, especially in dynamic conditions that are subject to time variation. The art lacks well-studied and reliable ways to predict and account for such dynamic network conditions. There have been various attempts to provide solutions to achieving maximum performance efficiency of the MCS.
US-2005/0064820 purports to disclose analyzing of a wired/wireless network and to optimize performance of the network by gathering data continuously from elements constituting a wired or wireless network to find an element of which performance and efficiency deteriorates. An optimal plan to resolve low performance is chosen through data analysis.
US-2007/0002759 purports to disclose a method for monitoring system conditions for time periods within a periodic time interval within which network parameters for optimizing a wireless may be determined.
US-2013/0143561 purports to disclose a computing platform provided to enable optimizing a cellular network by gathering data, retrieve statistical KPIs from a plurality of network elements, generate a predictive Key Performance Indicator by correlating information from the network elements and retrieved KPIs, and trigger changes to the cellular network based on the predicted trend.
US-2006/0063521 purports to disclose system monitoring and fault detection capable of detecting a sleeping cell, for example, by determining a deviation between actual cell performance and an expected cell performance.
US-2007/0026810 purports to disclose a wireless communication terminal that communicates on a plurality of sub-carriers divided into a plurality of frequency bands, wherein each frequency band includes at least one sub-carrier. The terminal measures a channel quality indicator (CQI) for a plurality of frequency bands, identifies a subset of frequency bands for which the channel quality indicator has been measured based on a subset criterion, and transmits a report identifying a subset of frequency bands for which a channel quality indicator has been measured or frequency bands not in the subset.
US-2011/0151881 purports to disclose methods and systems for fractional frequency reuse in wireless networks. A reuse factor of one (f=1) may be used to serve mobile stations located in inner cell regions that do not experience significant inter-cell interference (ICI) and a reuse factor of less than one (f<1) may be used for mobile stations located near the cell edge that tend to experience higher levels of ICI. Dynamic allocation of frequency partitions and adjustment of power levels for each base station sector are provided in order to avoid collisions between neighboring base station sectors and achieve improved capacity and performance. Load balancing may also be provided.
US-2011/0294527 purports to disclose a system that varies parameters in order to optimize wireless performance of cellular networks. The system is based on extended ANR (Automatic cell Neighbor relations) functionality as a means for generating cluster information in an electronic device and to transmit clustering information to one or more base stations. The disclosure emphasizes interference reduction techniques and the need for (dynamic) clustering of wireless network entities.
US-2012/0115423 purports to disclose a method that varies parameters in order to optimize wireless performance of cellular networks. It shows a frequency deviation pre-calibration method comprising estimating an uplink frequency deviation value of a user equipment and acquiring a historical uplink frequency deviation pre-calibration value, determining from the historical uplink frequency deviation pre-calibration value a current uplink frequency deviation pre-calibration value of the user equipment which is closer to the estimated uplink frequency deviation value than the historical uplink frequency deviation pre-calibration value and performing frequency deviation pre-calibration on the user equipment with the current uplink frequency deviation pre-calibration value.
US-2012/0282933 purports to disclose a controller coupled to a mobile communications environment including at least one of a public and a private network and method of controlling a mobile device in the mobile communications environment. The controller includes a receiver that receives data about network operating parameters at specific locations within the at least one of a public and private network, a processor that evaluates the data about the network operating parameters at the specific locations based upon rules for the mobile device, and a transmitter that sends advisories to a mobile device located within a predetermined proximity to one of the specific locations about the network operating parameters.
US-2012/0322438 purports to disclose an Operating Support System for Performance Management of a mobile telecommunications system comprising a plurality of nodes and radio access units servicing a plurality of cells generating a plurality of operational events data and counter values measured periodically for a first Result Output Period, ROP. Events data and counter values originating from the nodes and radio access units are collected, aggregated periodically for a second and further ROPs having a duration longer than the first ROP. From the collected events data further counter values are created periodically for the second and further ROPs. The aggregated and further counter values are processed corresponding to the originating nodes, radio access units and ROP, and the processed counter values are analyzed for providing system operational performance indicia in different time scales.
Prior art solutions do not provide an adequate solution to the problem of optimization of the MCS on the dimension of mobility performance while at the same time allowing maximum improvements to be achieved to other measures of network performance such as data transfer efficiency.